CORLEY, L.S.*; STRAND, M.R.: Regulation of Caste Fate in the Polyembryonic Wasp Copidosoma floridanum Striking morphological differentiation among individuals structures the complex societies found in insects such as termites, bees, and ants. Castes have also evolved in other insects such as aphids, thrips and polyembryonic wasps. Copidosoma floridanum is a polyembryonic parasitoid wasp that produces […]

DAVIS, G.K.*; JARAMILLO, C.A.; PATEL, N.H.: Pax group III genes and the evolution of insect pair-rule patterning We have investigated the expression of homologues of the Drosophila Pax group III (PgIII) genes paired (prd), gooseberry (gsb) and gooseberry-neuro (gsb-n) in short germ insects. During Drosophila embryogenesis, prd acts as one of several pair-rule genes to […]

FRIEDRICH, M.: Evolution of insect eye development: comparative and functional evidence for a conserved role of wingless in negatively controlling the spatial extent of retina differentiation Molecular genetic studies in model organisms like mouse and Drosophila have identified a number of genes, which appear to be expressed and required in similar ways during eye development. […]

Kettle, C. S.; Arthur, W.: Centipede embryology: conservation and change in early development within the Chilopoda and comparisons with other arthropods Centipedes provide a good opportunity to study the evolution of segmentation, because (a) different orders of centipedes have different numbers of segments and (b) within one order, Geophilomorpha, there is also intraspecific variation in […]

MALLATT, Jon M ; WINCHELL , Christopher J: Use of combined large-subunit and small-subunit ribosomal RNA sequences to classify the protostomes and deuterostomes The small-subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rRNA) is most widely used for molecular systematics, but we have added large-subunit (LSU) rRNA sequences from about forty taxa of protostome and deuterostome animals. The […]

WINCHELL, Christopher J.*; MARTIN, Andrew P.; MALLATT, Jon: Phylogeny of Living Elasmobranchs Based on LSU and SSU rRNA-Gene Sequences For over a century, debate on the higher-level phylogeny of elasmobranchs (sharks, skates, and rays), has focussed on affinities of the morphologically unique members of this group, such as skates and rays (batoids), Chlamydoselachus, Heterodontus, and […]

BRISCOE, Adriana D.: Parallel Evolution of Red-Green Color Vision in Bees and Butterflies A comparative approach was taken to identifying amino acid substitutions that may be under positive selection and are correlated with spectral shifts among orthologous and paralogous bee and butterfly long wavelength-sensitive (LW) opsins. Four novel LW opsin fragments were isolated, cloned and […]

HAYASHI, C.Y.: Convergent Evolution of Sequence Elements in Spider and Insect Silk Proteins Silks spun from the abdominal glands of spiders and silks drawn from the labial glands of insects are considered to be independently evolved proteins. Surprisingly, the amino acid sequences of some spider silks are much more similar to the sequences of moth […]

REICHMAN, J.R.; WILCOX, T.P.; VIZE, P.D.: Characterization and evolution of diverse peridinin chlorophyll-a protein gene families within symbiotic dinoflagellates. Photosynthetic dinoflagellates have evolved unique light harvesting complexes that combine the accessory pigment peridinin and chlorophyll-a within the hydrophobic center of water soluble proteins known as PCPs. PCPs allow the efficient harvesting of light in the […]

COX, R. M.; SKELLY, S. L.; JOHN-ALDER, H. B.; Rutgers University: Ontogenetic and mechanistic studies of growth and sexual size dimorphism in lizards Studies of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) have historically been dominated by an adaptive paradigm under which patterns of SSD are presumed to reflect differences in the selective forces acting on male versus […]